My Wine Pages: My Ridge Anniversary!

Today is a special day for me; it’s the day I celebrate my Ridge Anniversary. July 17th. The day I signed my offer letter for employment with Ridge Vineyards. It was an indisputably life-changing day.

When I first came to Ridge, Donn Reisen was still with us, and The Great Recession had not yet occurred. The 2001 Monte Bello had not yet received a 99 point rating from Robert Parker, and this blog did not yet exist. I was not yet a husband, nor a father. I am proudly, miraculously, both now.

Things have certainly changed.

July 17, historically, it seems to me, has not proven to be either a particularly auspicious, or inauspicious date. I mean, admittedly, Constantinople fell to the First Crusade on this date, but, well, that was a long time ago. Though it does call to mind for me They Might Be Giants’ version of “Istanbul, No Constantinople”:

So take me back to ConstantinopleNo, you can’t go back to ConstantinopleBeen a long time gone, ConstantinopleWhy did Constantinople get the works?That’s nobody’s business but the Turks

Which, I should note, was originally performed by The Four Lads. See for yourself Le Difference!

The Four Lads

They Might Be Giants

And it was, in fact, the day that Walt Disney opened Disneyland is Anaheim, California, back in 1955. But, well, that was just Goofy …

It was also Jimmy Cagney’s birthday, which should certainly count for something. And in fact, it was actually the day Billie Holiday passed, which really counts for something.

Lady Day

Which most certainly calls to mind a great poem by Frank O’ Hara …

Frank O' Hara

…entitled “The Day Lady Died” …

It is 12:20 in New York a Fridaythree days after Bastille Day, yesit is 1959, and I go get a shoeshinebecause I will get off the 4:19 in East Hampton at 7:15 and then go straight to dinnerand I don’t know the people who will feed meI walk up the muggy street beginning to sunand have a hamburger and a malted and buy an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets in Ghana are doing these daysI go on to the bankand Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)doesn’t even look up my balance for once in her lifeand in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlainefor Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I dothink of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore orBrendan Behan’s new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègresof Genet, but I don’t, I stick with Verlaineafter practically going to sleep with quandarinessand for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANELiquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega, andthen I go back where I came from to 6th Avenueand the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatere andcasually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a cartonof Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on itand I am sweating a lot by now and thinking ofleaning on the john door in the 5 SPOTwhile she whispered a song along the keyboardto Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing.

I get nostalgic when I think of anniversaries, and my inner hobo old bluesman man comes out. I get melancholic, and wise, and mournful, and excellent. And in a strange way, I also get young again. Which calls to mind Bob Dylan’s great song, “My Back Pages”:

Crimson flames tied through my earsRollin’ high and mighty trapsPounced with fire on flaming roadsUsing ideas as my maps“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said IProud ’neath heated browAh, but I was so much older thenI’m younger than that now

Which then calls to mind my re-write of another verse from this song, which I just wrote:

In a pourer’s stance, I aim my wineAt the visitors who teachFearing not that I’d become my guestsIn the instant that I preachMy wineway led by allusion notesPoetry from stern to bowAh, but I was so much older thenI’m younger than that now

Which means nothing other than that I learn alot by being here. I have learned SO MUCH by being here.

Sometimes I just stop, look around, and say to myself, “Wow, I work at Ridge!”

July 17th. To paraphrase a line from Ice Cube, “Today was a good day.”